ZM's Fletch, Vaughan & Hayley - Fletch, Vaughan & Hayley's Fact of the Day (of the Week!) - Ancient Rome Week!

Episode Date: September 28, 2023

Vaughanius Caeser marches us through a battlefield of Ancient Roman Info!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The ZM Podcast Network. Play ZM's Fletch, Vaughn, and Hayley. Hello and welcome to Fact of the Day of the Week. Emperor Vaughn Caesar deigns to give us a walking tour through the history of ancient Roman society. It's time for... Fact of the Day, Day, Day, day, day. Today's A Fact of the Day is the first day in Ancient Rome Week.

It's Ancient Rome Week. It's Ancient Rome Week at Fact of the Day because everybody's always talking about the Ancient Roman Empire. How men always think of Ancient Rome at least once a week. How often? How often do you think? And now that it's been brought to our attention that we do think about it, I'm thinking about it even more than I would normally.

Yeah, same. Like I had a video of ancient aqueducts pop up the other day and I was like, this is amazing. That was some phenomenal engineering. This was ages ago. Like how did they know all of this? Some phenomenal engineering. Well, no, I've gone for weird is amazing. That was some phenomenal engineering. This was ages ago. How did they know all of this? Some phenomenal engineering. Well, no, I've gone for weird stuff that they did in the Roman Empire.

Yeah, good. For this week's Fact of the Week, our theme, the ancient Roman Empire. Today's Fact of the Day is charioteers, people that drove chariots, and gladiators drank an energy drink made of goat dung and vinegar. What? Yeah. Goodness. I know.

Red Bull gives you wings. Goat dung gives you speed, apparently. Yeah. Was it like some kind of gut, kombuchery drink? Well, according to- Fermented somehow? Pliny the Elder, who was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, goat dung could be used not only for patching up wounds in the case of an emergency, like a poultice, but also mixed with vinegar to make an energy drink. Yuck.

Yeah, gross, eh? The best dung was collected in spring when the grass that they were eating was the newest, new growth, full of the nutrients that came with spring and dried out and then powdered and mixed with vinegar and could be drunk. And this also was by Nero, the emperor of Rome at one stage. drank it because it gave him extra strength and speed in the Tagerium, which is like an equestrian training place for like war equestrian, not like a sandy square where a horse goes clip, clop, clip, clop. Yeah, okay. Nowadays, like it was a far more war adjacent training. So that's something to think about if you're tucking into your monster energy drink or Red Bull or V or whatever you're doing. You could just be making your own.

I've got a couple of goats. It is spring. Join me at the upcoming QMU Summer Markets. I think you'll get shut down by the council health department. Oh, do you reckon? If you keep that up. Oh, because I didn't prepare it in a commercial kitchen. Great point.

I will take it to a commercial kitchen. Get a commercial kitchen. And dry it out and mix it with vinegar. So today's was basically like the Roman equivalent of a wellness influencer. Yeah. Well, my dogs love it. Are they Roman? Possibly.

They'll eat goat poo. Yeah. When the goats have been on the lawn over winter. And then they'll go speeding around the room. They'll run. Maybe there is something to it. Maybe not worth trying though. So today's fact of the day is if you would like

the recipe for an ancient Roman energy drink, you are going to need some goat dung and vinegar. Today's fact of the day is it's ancient Rome week. Yeah, good. Great. Lots of great weird facts about ancient Rome. Here for it.

Yesterday we talked about the gladiator energy drink that was goat dung and vinegar. Wow. Yeah, goat dung. I don't know. Often powdered, sometimes boiled. It was called G. Yeah, right.

Yeah. G goat gives you wings. Yeah. Gives you horns. Is that what G force is? Yeah, yeah. Man, I used to drink those. I had no idea it had goat. That's why it's not around anymore. Yeah, right. So everybody started Is that what G-Force is? Yeah, yeah. Man, I used to drink those. I had no idea it had goats.

That's why it's not around anymore. Yeah, right. So everybody started finding out what was in it. So today's fact of the day is about gladiators. Another sort of one about the gladiators. Not the energy drink they used to drink, but the fact that if they lost in battle and they would die, they would bleed out,

that their body was used for medical purposes. Oh, okay. The blood of wounded gladiators was sometimes drunk by the rich folk. Oh, yeah. I know, the rich ones. Because they believed it could cure epilepsy. Why epilepsy? Don't know.

Wow. Because they were such strong characters. Also, after they'd been in the arena even if they hadn't fought to the death or if they were very sweaty when they'd come off, they would collect the sweat off gladiators and use it in cosmetics. What? Wealthy woman would use it as face cream or perfume. Because they admired these like spiders and strong men so much Yeah the gladiators were sort of held above

Right The rest of the The population Because everybody loved them so much And different body parts were used for different things The hair was used as Good luck charms Apparently collected and kept in pockets and stuff

Modern day equivalent of like the all and kept in pockets and stuff. Modern day equivalent of like the All Blacks coming off Eden Park and then we just like kind of scrape them down for the sweat. You maybe take a little bit of hair from Will Jordan. Yeah, why not? You take a Barrett's pair of undies or something for whatever reason. Yeah, whatever reason. Whatever reason you want. Speaking of post-match and undies,

did you see the Warriors all sitting around in their undies after the weekend's game? What, feeling sorry for themselves? Well, no, they were just having their post-match wine down in their chat after they'd lost. In undies? Did they have an undies sponsor or something? No, they were all sitting in their undies, though.

I just thought I'd chuck that out there for anybody who's maybe missed that. Well, they wouldn't be jockey, because that's the All Blacks. Would they be? Where would Hayley find that footage? Pleasure State. Pleasure State. No, I reckon there'd be a few of them would wear those Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday undies.

The tradie undies. The tradie undies. They very well might. Yeah. But, yeah, today's fact of the day, and the second day of the ancient Rome themed fact of the day week. Fact of the day of the week? Yeah.

Is that parts of gladiators were used for various non-gladiatorial purposes. Today's fact of the day, Anthony supplied this. Thank you, Anthony. For Roman ancient Rome fact of the day, week themed. I still haven't really worked out how to say that rolled off the tongue well. This is because, and you would have seen this online, guys, all they do is think about ancient Rome.

Yes. Quite a lot. This will get you thinking. Okay. Because Anthony said, have you heard of the Nemi ships of ancient Rome? And I said, I haven't. And now I've been reading about them. Fascinating, yet puzzling.

Okay. Because on a lake, Lake Nemi in Italy, there were two large ships constructed, pleasure barges, that were destroyed by fire in World War II after Mussolini had spent lots of money to get them up as a sort of a look at our long history of naval pride. Right. Look at these beautiful ships that were built centuries ago.

They were built in 1 AD. So by the time World War I happened, these things were nearly 2,000 years old, these ships that had been sitting on the bottom of Lake Nimi. Now you might be thinking, ships on a lake. How big is this lake? Well, I've been googling sizes of lakes that are comparable

to have two large luxury pleasure ships built on them. They did like a dinner cruise. They did everything, dude. I'll tell you more about that in a minute. If I may tell you to localise this, if you're familiar with Lake Pupuke on the North Shore of Auckland? Nope.

Are you not? It's a small lake. It's really deep though, isn't it? It's very deep. It's very small. That's how big the lake was. For Hamiltonians listening, the Hamilton Lake. The one down by the playground. Where are we at? Incompetor Lake Taupo. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Calm your farm. It's not too big. Oh, yeah. The one down by the playground. You know that lake? Where we at in competitor Lake Taupo. Whoa, whoa, whoa. The most famous lake.

Calm your farm. It's gone too big. Tiny. You've gone way too big. There would be larger lakes on farms than this lake. And maybe like for Wellingtonians, because I don't know of any lakes in Wellington. No, neither.

Maybe like 10 bucket fountains. Oh, okay. I see. No, maybe like 100. 100 bucket fountains. Well, it was like the equivalent of like 1.1 square kilometres. I've got a list of lakes here. You know, there's over 3,000 lakes in this size around New Zealand.

Very interesting. Now, I've kind of got lost a little bit down the rabbit hole of lakes around New Zealand. But there's lots of local comparisons for how big a lake. Christchurch, that poo pond. Why doesn't Hagley Park have a lake? Does it have a lake? Doesn't it? No, Hagley Park.

I did find a Christchurch, a comparable Christchurch lake, and it's out of town a little bit. Right. Should start a petition. Get Christchurch a lake. Get a nice lake at Hagley Park. Well, they've got the... So we can go on rowboats and get some ducks and stuff.

They've got the punting down the bloody... Get some ducks. Yeah, I know. That's a river, isn't it? We're going to shoot the ducks on the Hagley Park lake. No, just get some ducks for the lake They've got the punting down the bloody... Get some ducks. Yeah, I know. It's a river, isn't it? We're going to shoot the ducks on the Hagley Park Lake. No, just like get some ducks for the lake, I'm just saying. Oh, yeah. There's already ducks in there.

Ducks will just come to a lake, I think. You don't need to get them. You don't need to force them. No, you've got to invite them. You've got to start. You've got to send out a couple of... Facebook invites. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Come and check out this quacker of a new body of water. They won't say that. They're not self-aware. Come on, Vaughn. We're sending them Facebook invites but they're not going to get an absolute great pun. Come on. Can you take this seriously, please? Ducks don't get puns, Vaughn. Sometimes I wonder if he's okay.

Come and live in LA for free. You won't be billed. They're not doing humour. They are famously a humourless bird. Ah, okay. What is wrong with you? Daffy Duck, of course. Donald Duck, famously humorous. Humourless. Yeah, thank you.

Okay, so two of these big-ass boats were built on this lake. Why? Well, it was the lake, apparently had a little bit of, like, religious reason, so, like, yeah, your flitches roll in his eyes. The right, on a full moon, it would like fully reflect the lake.

Yeah, and a big image of Jesus. Make it look, well, no, this was pre-Jesus. Because it turned into a mirror and reflected Jesus from the clouds. Yeah. It was more like Egyptian. You don't know. Religions.

No, it says here, it says ISIS. You don't know. The Egyptian ISIS is. It says here, it says ISIS. Fawn, you don't know. The Egyptian ISIS cult. ISIS was certainly not around then. Not ISIS. They weren't driving around in Toyota Hiluxes. There is a lake in Hagley Park. Yeah, my sister-in-law just texted me saying,

ah, there is a lake. They sail remote control boats on it. Why haven't I ever seen this lake? I'm going to look at that. No, there's a river. A river goes around the outside. I know there's a river, Vaughan. Pon the Avon.

That's the river, right? The Avon River. Where's the lake in Higley? I'm going to keep going with what was on the ship. You keep going. I'm going to have a look. So when they finally got these up.

Oh, it's big. I can see it without even Victoria Lake. Look at that. There is a lake. You didn't do a very good Google search, Vaughan. I Googled Christchurch lakes and it gave me nothing.

It gave me one on the outskirts of town. Yeah, no, this is good. Yeah. That's a nice lake. Shut up, Alice. Alice has just messaged from Christchurch. It's Brandon Gardens. All our Christchurch listeners are very upset with us.

Thank you for getting in touch. You know what? Next time we're in Christchurch for work, we're going to go to the lake and feed the ducks. Who? No, you can't feed them bread. Who are humorless birds. Don't do puns. As we've established.

They love Facebook. They can't. Yeah, stop talking about. Yeah, you'd go from the botanic gardens, you'd go over and then Victoria Lake. Oh, there's a public toilet nearby. Oh, good.

Perfect. That's what I like with my legs. You know, you've worn... Ducks. Ducks. Tuneless. Love bread. Have Facebook.

Go cruising old school stalls. Yeah. That's what a duck does. Anyway, these boats. These boats. Shush and let me tell you about the boats. When they finally got them... So, fishermen, local fishermen knew about...

Wait, there's two lakes. Lake Albert is right next to Victoria Lake. So, they've actually got two lakes. Albert and Victoria. King and Queen. That'll be why they've called them those. Carry on. So the local fishermen knew about these boats for ages,

and when they wanted to sell things to tourists, I'm talking hundreds of years ago, they'd just drop hooks down until it grabbed something and then just yank it and hope that they broke a bit off and then they could sell it. So people were doing this for a while. So when they finally drained this lake pre-World War II, Mussolini's like, drain it.

Let's get this out. As I said before, let's show the people what a wonderful naval history we had. They'd kind of been pulled to bits. But there were still things. There's a museum dedicated to them. You can go and see all the brass fittings. But they said they had marble floors, mosaic floor, heating and plumbing. There were baths on the boat that pumped water in, heated it.

You could bathe. Yeah. I'm guessing eat, drink. So very similar to the inter-islander. Very similar, except just on a lake. And there was two of them on different sides of the lake. They believe it was some sort of religious competition on who. Because of Jesus.

Who could it be? Again, Jesus didn't have skin in the game at this stage of the proceedings. The religion du jour was mostly just Egyptian and Roman gods, but they had different sides of the lakes with different moons. And these two massive boats, they brought them up in World War II and they were like, look, and then they got burnt down. Okay, wrap it up. You've been going on too long.

They got burnt down. I just can't believe he thought that ducks had a sense of humour. They famously don't. The world's first luxury cru don't. The world's first luxury cruises were invented by the Romans but were on a small lake. No bigger than

Lake Victoria and Christchurch which I've known about for years. Wait, is that the one with the step hump silver The one where the birds

were impaling themselves on. I have been to that lake. Me too. Oh, that's cute. Less of a lake more of a sizeable puddle. Play ZM's Fletchford and Ailey. Play ZM.

I would like to thank Miss Stevenson for today's Fact of the Day. Kat, long time listener of the show. She's been listening for a very long time. Kat Stevenson. Oh, close. She is a classics teacher. She says she's been loving for a very long time. Kat Stevenson. Oh, close. She is a classics teacher. She says she's been loving Ancient Rome Fact of the Day.

Oh, great. We love it too. And I said, well, you're a teacher. Give me something. Give me, give me, give me, give me, give me, give me. And she said, okay, what about Commodus? Who is it? Harkon Phoenix played. Joaquin? Sorry, I say that wrong every time. You do. Joaquin Phoenix played in Gladiator.

Oh, okay. Oh, yeah. They're making a second one. They're making a second one. It's been filmed or it is filming. What, with Russell? I don't know. Not that I doubt we could get back into that shape,

but it was insane. Yeah. He's not in his late 20s anymore. No, I don't know who's in the Gladiator 2. Let me look. I love that film so much, Gladiator. It's a great film. So it'll be out in 2024. Pauls anymore. No, I don't know who's in the Gladiator 2. Let me look. I love that film so much. It's a great film. So it'll be out in 2024.

Paul Mescal. Oh, great. Oh, there you go. From the 61. Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Connie Nelson, Pedro Pascal is in it. Russell Crowe's playing. I feel like Jason should be in there.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Russell Crowe is a gladiator. Spoiler alert. Didn't he die at the end of the first one? Didn't he die in the arena? No, he doesn't die. Yeah. This is serving as a prequel to Gladiator.

So maybe they'll de-age him. How is it going to be a prequel? And de-tum him. It'll be in a small role from Russell. Yeah, I think so. I think that's why the actor's strike's still ongoing. They're waiting to get the D-tumming. They're waiting for Russell to shred.

So this guy was insane. Kind of his insanity was touched upon in the movie. He was like brutal and insane and did horrible things. But in real life, he was also like crazy. He had a very inappropriate relationship with his sister. That's a story for another time. A little bit Game of Thrones. Big, big Game of Thrones.

The original Game of Thrones. So his father was a well-respected emperor. He became emperor. He renamed all the months after himself. You might be thinking, how did he have 12 names? He gave himself a whole lot of names as well. So they were like Invictus, Felix, Pius, Lucius, and just named all after himself, basically.

Augustus was the only name that stuck, that has continued to. But other things he did, he believed he was Hercules. The Roman Empire came after the Greek Empire. He believed he was Hercules reborn, so he'd dress up as him for battles in the arena But in the arena he wouldn't fight gladiators He would fight disabled people in gladiator costumes This guy sounds crazy That's problematic

He would charge his own government A million sursterces, which is the currency, to fight every time he did when he'd go into the arena and fight people with disabilities, which equates to about four million New Zealand dollars these days. Oh my lord! And he'd go out there and he would often

have his bodyguards, if someone even with a disability was looking like they were getting the upper hand, the bodyguards would step in. Well, this is not a fair fight, is it? No, and he would also say he was going to fight all these wild animals, but he'd fight things like giraffes and other herbivores. They were like thrashing their heads around. Yeah, herbivores that weren't aggressive, and he would fight them,

but he'd just stand on a raised plinth and just shoot them with bows and arrows. I'd take the front legs out. Yeah, because they would just be so top-heavy. Yeah. I'd just have one leg out. I mean, I don't want to, but if I had to. Three-legged giraffe. Let me Google that.

I just think the balance would be too much. That'd be easy fodder for a lioness to take down in a hunt on the plains there in Africa. I want to apologise. Maximus Meridius does die at the end of Gladiator. Yeah, because he stabs him with a body knife. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, he definitely does. So today's end of Gladiator. Yeah, because he stabs him with a body or an eye, remember? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, he definitely does. So today's fact of the day

is the character Commodus from Gladiator, that was played by Joaquin Phoenix, was a real life Roman Emperor who was insane on all earth. Today's fact of the day is about Roman dental care because we are in the midst of ancient Rome fact of the day weeks

and we've been covering different parts of it. The ancient Romans actually had pretty good dental care. Oh yeah? They put a lot of time and effort into it. Some of their toothpastes probably wouldn't have got the tick from nine out of ten dentists, though. Did they have walnut shells and stuff? Mincy stripes?

Yeah, were they using St. Ives apricot scrub? No, one of the flavours was mouse brain. Yum. Ew. Yeah, rodent brain. Like a pate. Moolied up and mixed with bicarbonate soda, sodium, powdered charcoal and sometimes bark was added.

Charcoal's good, though. Charcoal's good for the teeth, isn't it? Oh, is it too abrasive now? Are they saying it's too abrasive? Yeah, they're saying it's bad. It's too abrasive. Oh, okay. Other toothpastes included powder of ox hooves ashes,

so they would burn the ox hooves and then powder them and put them in. Well, that's not vegan. And burnt, no, not at all, and burnt pounded egg shells. Yeah, what did the ancient vegans do? Well, how did they brush their teeth? Just a stick. The ancient vegans. I don't know.

Also, I'll just touch on lightly the fact that they also had a mouthwash. Did they? They had a mouthwash. What was it? Miss Alina, wife of Emperor Claudius, washed her teeth with a paste of powdered deer antler and mouse brain and chose to gargle undiluted human urine, preferably the super strong stuff shipped all the way from Portugal where urine was believed to contain more ammonia.

Oh, yeah. Love it in a Spanish person. It's that paella. Love me that strong. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Best in the world. Best in the world. Yeah, barrel aged with. Strong. Best in the world. Best in the world. Yeah, yeah.

Barrel aged with a beautiful oaky finish. So, yeah, the Romans, especially in the Senate, it was a sign of wealth if you had white teeth. Yeah, right. And neglected teeth could get you booted out, even if, like, naturally you just didn't have very nice teeth. Nice teeth taken very, very seriously. Yeah.

So today's Fact of the Day. And the final fact for the Roman, ancient Rome, Fact of the Day week thing. Download the podcast of all the Fact of the Days in one final fact for the Roman ancient Rome Fact of the Day download the podcast of all the Fact of the Days in one podcast it's so handy with their different themes

it is so handy is that ancient Roman toothpaste included things like Portuguese urine and mouse brains Fact of the Day

Day Day Day Day Fact of the day, day, day, day, day. Yeah. I just realised I did the whole show with my headphones on backwards. Well, that means the show's backwards then, isn't it? We're going to have to play this in reverse. Well, should we speak in reverse and hopefully they'll work

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